


The Aftermath

by wil2scully



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:46:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26381359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wil2scully/pseuds/wil2scully
Summary: What happened after Adrian left the pier in S4 finale?
Relationships: Deran Cody & Adrian Dolan, Deran Cody/Adrian Dolan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	1. In Friends We Trust

**Author's Note:**

> I've often wondered who was in that car on the pier. The flashing lights were sinister. It felt like strong foreshadowing, so I feel they're going to use this in canon. This is just my version of what followed.

Adrian

The world became a whooshing noise in Adrian’s ears as he turned away from the pier. The car waiting for him in the parking lot made a sluggish flash of lights for the umpteenth time, and Adrian ambled toward them. He could barely walk. He couldn’t think. He was a jumbled mess of thought.

“How could he do this?” “How can I live without him?” “How can I just leave my sister and my nephew?” “How could it have come to this, when all I wanted was to be on equal footing with the man I love?” “How could I have gotten it all, just to lose it and my whole life? Our whole life together?”

The car blinked the lights again. It was becoming a theme. Lights on, Deran is opening up, becoming the love you always knew he could be. The kind of love everyone dreams of is so close! It’s going to work. It’s going to be perfect!

Lights off, Deran is going back to being a Cody. He cares more about his brothers than he does you. It was never going to work with him, and now you’ve not only lost the love of your life, but your WHOLE life. He’s the worst thing that ever happened to you.

But he’s not the worst thing. He’s the best thing. He’s the reason Adrian had wanted to try one last time to become a professional surfer, to make Deran proud that HIS boyfriend had succeeded where Deran had been denied. 

Well, if Adrian was being honest with himself, he had wanted it for him, too, not just Deran. Touring was expensive, however, and though Adrian knew Deran would have continued to support him financially, he couldn’t let Deran do that. Not if he wanted to be an equal to Deran. Not if he wanted this relationship to be on equal ground. 

These thoughts were swirling in Adrian’s head as he opened the back door of the car and collapsed on the seat. He was thinking of nothing else. Not whose car this was. Not who was behind the wheel. Not that it was dark as fuck outside, and the only person besides the driver who could have seen him get in was Deran. Deran, who was slumped on the pier, completely oblivious to the outside world. 

The car started to pull out of the lot, but Adrian didn’t even notice. The tears were washing down his swollen eyes as he heaved a breath and sobbed again. He started to shake, and the wail that came out of his body was so loud it frightened him. He attempted to apologize to the driver for it, but the words came out as a shudder. 

Adrian was so lost in his grief, he didn’t realize until an hour had passed the car wasn’t heading toward the airport. He had just been staring out the window, watching the street lights go by in an endless haze of tears. 

The driver mumbled something, and Adrian looked up. He finally found his words and peered at the driver. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”, Adrian asked, his voice cracking.

“I said, you won’t be crying about that asshole for long”. “Excuse me?”, Adrian asked, just then realizing they were not headed to the airport. He was beginning to be scared for a totally different reason. 

“My cousin ain’t worth crying about anyway. Well, I guess he’s my cousin. Don’t really have to claim him as that, since he ain’t no blood of mine. Just his fucked up brother. Shouldn’t claim his ass either. They sure aren’t any family I give a shit about.”

Adrian looked at the back of the driver’s head in confusion, as new thoughts started to swirl in his head. What was going on? Who was this person? Hadn’t Deran arranged this ride? Why would he schedule a ride with a cousin he didn’t know? A cousin who seemed to have some animosity against, not only him, but his brother (which brother Adrian wasn’t sure).

“Who are you?”, Adrian tentatively asked. Then the flood of questions started pouring out. “Did Deran arrange for you to pick us up?”. “Where are we going?”. “You aren’t driving toward the airport”. The last was a statement, not a question. Adrian knew they weren’t. 

A dark edged chuckle came from the front, and all the blood rushed out of Adrian’s body. “Oh, that asshat arranged a ride, but this wasn’t it. We took care of that shit. Sucks that he didn’t give enough of a shit about you to come with you though. We wanted him more than you. But we’ll take what we can get. For now. Just hope he thinks enough about you to come after your ass with his brothers when he realizes you’re not where he sent you.”

“Where are you taking me?”. It came out as more of a squeak. Adrian was starting to realize he was in a lot more trouble than he’d left at the pier. 

“That’s really not what you should be concerned about, asshole. You just better hope your fag boyfriend decides you’re worth somethin’. Didn’t seem to give a shit about you back there though, so we may just have to get rid of the trash and try something else. We’re gonna get what’s ours back from those fuckers before we do it though. They need to pay for what they done to our pops”. 

Adrian was aware he was “the trash” this goon was referring to. Something big must have gone down right before the shit had hit the fan on his and Deran’s relationship. Something this freak and his family wanted retribution for. And he was the retribution. He had to get out of this car before it reached it’s destination. 

He reached for the door handle. He was going to just jump out, no matter the speed of the car. He figured he was dead anyway if he was still in the car when it stopped. The handle just jiggled, but the door stayed shut.

“You ain’t gettin out of this car that way dickhead”, Goonhead grumbled. “Try that again and I’ll just shoot you in your faggot head. We’ll find another way to get back at them.” 

___

Deran

He was finally able to stand after his collapse on the pier upon Adrian’s departure, but he was so shaky his knees wobbled. He grabbed the side of the pier and hung on until the shakiness passed. Without warning, he felt a rise of nausea, and leaning over the pier, vomited into the water below. He felt dizzy and swayed, holding on to the pier for dear life.

The vertigo and nausea slowly passed, and he let go of the pier, staggering off toward the Scout. His head was a mess. He couldn’t really articulate, even to himself, why he had decided to stay. His life would be worthless without Adrian. Not that he had ever deserved Adrian in the first place. He was a Cody after all. May we all get what we want, and never what we deserve.

He continued ruminating about the abrupt turn of events that had happened over just a few days. One day, he was starting to feel like his life was on an amazing trajectory. He had bought a home. Adrian had moved in. They were going to be a couple, openly and without shame. Adrian wanted him as much as he wanted Adrian. Things were finally turning around.  
The next, Adrian’s life was on the line because of one bad decision, and now he was gone. Gone. To Indonesia. Never to return. How could this have happened?

He made his way back to the bar, knowing he wouldn’t be returning to the house he’d shared with Adrian. It wasn’t his house anymore. Not without Adrian to share it with. He might as well put it back on the market, because there was no way he’d live there without the man he’d bought it for. 

Pulling up to the bar, he noticed Craig’s motorcycle, J’s Tacoma and Pope’s truck parked outside. Wondering what the hell they were all doing at his bar without him, he pushed through the door, slamming it against the wall. 

One look at his brothers sitting there, and he knew something was wrong. They all had that look on their faces like they’d gotten more bad news. 

“So, you decided to send A off alone, huh?”, Craig muttered from across the bar. Deran looked at him incredulously. His heart sank lower as the implications of that hit him yet again. “Yeah, I did. I couldn’t let him stay here and go to prison. Not going to happen. He’d die in there.” 

Pope sounded sad. “Why didn’t you go with him? I thought that was the plan.” “It was”, Deran forced out, angrily. “I couldn’t leave you guys. Not sure I can live without him either though. I’m not in the mood to talk about it. What the fuck are all of you doing here, anyway?”

Pope spoke up again, this time sounding as angry as Deran just had. “Who the fuck did you send Adrian off with? Do you even know?”

“It was a friend of ours. Why?” Deran was starting to become alarmed. His brothers and nephew just looked down at the floor. “Why, Pope?” “Why are you asking me that?”

Pope answered with a question of his own. “Where’s your phone, Deran? Do you even have it on?”

Deran hadn’t bothered to look at his phone since Adrian had left. In fact, he hadn’t looked at the damn thing since before he’d met Adrian on the pier. He wasn’t sure when the last time was he’d pulled it out of his pocket. 

As he did, he noticed a missed call, and a voicemail. He didn’t recognize the number that had left the message, and as he looked back up to his family, he could tell the voicemail held no good information. 

“What’s going on Pope? How did you even know I sent Adrian away?”. His voice came out in almost a whimper. Something was horribly wrong. 

“The preppers, Deran. You need to check your phone.”, Pope said without even looking at him. All the blood drained out of Deran’s face. He glanced at Craig and J. Both of them continued looking at the floor. 

Deran pulled his phone back out, terrified of what the message waiting for him had to say. He brought up his voicemail and held the phone to his ear. It was Adrian. “Please help me Deran”, was all he had gotten out. He sounded hysterical. The phone had then been taken by someone else. “You better give more of a shit about this pretty boy than it looked like you did on the pier a few hours ago, or I guess we’ll just kill him and find another way to get you boys down here. We’re not fucking around. I have no problem putting a bullet in this kid’s head, and neither do my brothers. You have 3 hours to call this number back and deal with us. I won’t call back. Your boy toy will just be dead. Tic toc, asshole.” 

The voicemail ended. Deran felt vomit rise up his throat. He didn’t even run to the bathroom. He just puked on the floor. Then he collapsed in a chair. He looked at the time the voicemail had come in. Two hours, 12 minutes ago. Fuck! He had to call them back NOW! All he could hope was that these crazy fuckers held up their end of the bargain and waited for three. Otherwise, Adrian could already be dead. He might be anyway. 

They’d most likely kill him regardless, even if Deran complied. Deran knew this, but he had to try. Jesus, he had to try! 

“Did you guys get calls too?”, Deran said meekly. All three of them nodded. “We did”, Craig muttered. “They all mentioned having Adrian. Not that they called him by his name, but it was pretty clear who they were talking about.”, he added. 

“Who ARE these people”? Not that Deran gave a fuck, not really. But if these people were gunning for him and his family, he wanted to know why. “Had any of you even heard of them before Smurf came up with her fucked up plan?” 

“They’re my cousins, apparently”, Pope said. All three of them looked up at him. “I guess the dude Smurf took out was my uncle. She introduced me to him as such when we were there, anyway. Smurf killed him when he was heading to that bunker. The whole thing was a suicide attack. She didn’t plan for either of us to leave there alive. That’s why she went crazy when we met up with you guys. I forced her into the truck and got us the hell out of there, and she was pissed. If J hadn’t taken her out, she probably would have killed all of us. I think she wanted us to die with her.”

“Well, great. Now what do we do?”, asked J. “We can return the money we stole, but we can’t give their dad back. You know they’re gonna want all of us dead. I hate to tell you this, Deran, but it’s gonna be tough to get Adrian back in one piece.”, J finished. 

Deran started to hyperventilate. He put his head between his legs, but it didn’t really help. He tried to calm himself down. Freaking out wasn’t going to help their situation, and it definitely wasn’t going to help Adrian. He needed to think. All their heads were on the line, not just Adrian’s. They needed a plan, and a good one. Fuck! 

“I’m making a call to them. They gave me three hours before they kill Adrian, and I only have like 30 minutes left.”, Deran spat out, pulling his phone up. “Guess I’ll find out what they want”


	2. Plans

Adrian

He couldn’t see what was going on around him. Whoever had him hadn’t wanted him to know their faces, so they’d put a blindfold over his eyes. Thinking of the driver who had taken him, he realized the guy had never turned around to give Adrian a look at his face. 

Adrian was hopeful that if they were trying to hide their faces from him, they didn’t want to risk him being able to identify them once he was free, and therefore there was a possibility he might live through this nightmare. So he was ok with the blindfold.

He could still hear, however. A phone rang nearby, and the guy with him answered it. “About time you called. So, guess he’s not just a piece of ass to you after all?”. There was silence while Deran did the talking. Or he assumed it was Deran. He certainly wasn’t “a piece of ass" for anyone else. 

“Listen, asshole, you’re not in a position to give me orders. If you want your property back, you’re gonna give us ours.”, the man said with a sarcastic air. “Course, you can’t give us back our family, so we want more than just our property. You need to bring us 2 million, in gold, along with all that shit you took. No cash. Gold. In bars. And because we’re generous and your batshit brother is technically family, you have 24 hours to get it to us. You don’t? Your  
Funbag here is gonna enjoy gettin gang-banged before we shove a gun up his ass and blow it out his brains. We’ll send you the remnants. I don’t have to tell you where we are. Meet us at the bunker. 24 hours. Not a minute more. The clock starts now.” 

Silence. Adrian realized the guy hadn’t given Deran a chance to reply. He heard movement, and then felt hot breath in his ear. The smell was vile. “I kinda hope your boyfriend doesn’t show.”, the man whispered. “Think I’d kind of enjoy shoving my dick up your ass. May do it anyway. You’re too pretty just to look at”. 

Adrian felt a wet tongue run up the side and then into his ear. He pulled away, cringing. The man laughed. “Oh, c’mon. I know you’d enjoy it. Have a feeling you like taking it. Probably want a cock up your ass more than bein’ the one doing the fucking, right? I know I’m right. And you know what? Could be your lucky day.” 

Adrian felt the guy reach between his legs and squeeze him through his pants. He shrunk against the chair, but his arms were strapped behind it, and he couldn’t get out of the guy’s reach. Thankfully the man left after he’d gripped him. The door slammed, and he was alone again. 

Hot tears began rolling down Adrian’s face. He couldn’t control it. He started to shake - again. “Please come get me Deran!”, he wailed into the empty room. “Please, please, please, please, please”. It seemed to be the only word his brain could come up with. He started rocking, trying in vain to hug himself. “I need you. Please help me. Please don’t leave me here. Please come get me. Please don’t let them kill me. Please? Please! PLEASE!!”. 

____

Deran

Avoiding the temptation to throw the phone across the room was difficult. The only thing keeping him from it was that if the damn thing broke, he’d lose contact with the scumbags holding Adrian. 

He turned around to the room, meeting three sets of inquisitive eyes. “So?”, J asked. “What’s the verdict?”. Deran looked at them with a blank stare. He was a bit out of it. “We have 24 hours to give them back their shit, along with 2 million in gold bars. Has to be gold bars. Not cash. They want us to meet them back at the bunker. Said they’d take turns with Adrian before killing him if we don’t comply.”, Deran said. He knew he sounded like he was about to cry.

Craig was the first to speak up. Bless him. “Ok, well, we need a plan then, right?”. He looked around the room at the rest of them. Deran was shaking his head yes, but Pope and J remained silent. “We ARE going to get Adrian, RIGHT?!!”, Craig bellowed. “He’s family. Adrian is family. We’re getting him back. At least we’re gonna try!”

Pope nodded. He had that pinched look on his face. “Of course we’re gonna get him.”, he said, sounding like he was speaking to a room full of idiots. “We can’t just show up like they want though. They’ll probably have lookouts waiting for us. They’ll ambush us, then kill Adrian anyway. You said 24 hours, right?”. 

Deran just nodded. He felt miserable. He’d done this. This was all his fault. He knew now sending Adrian away alone had been a colossal mistake. Not just because neither of them would have been good at coping with the situation, but arranging that ride and then not getting into it with him led to this. Adrian’s kidnapping. Because of him and his family. Again. 

It boiled down to Adrian’s association with him. Adrian always seemed to be the one in the crosshairs of Deran and his family and the shit they were involved with. The immunity deal being recinded. The threat to his life from Smurf, and the subsequent crazy idea of sending him to Indonesia. This kidnapping. 

Hell, even Adrian’s short career as a drug smuggler was Deran’s fault. He hadn’t meant for it to be, but buying the house and sponsoring Adrian was, in Adrian’s eyes, another method of control. Deran should have realized that. Adrian wasn’t a pushover. He was independent when it mattered, and could be stubborn as shit. 

“It’s not your fault, Deran”, Pope grumbled. “I know that’s what you’re thinking, but dwelling on that isn’t gonna help Adrian. And if you had gotten in that car? They would have had YOU to bargain against us with. Probably would have killed Adrian outright. They wouldn’t have needed him if they had you. You may actually have saved his life by not going. Use that brain of yours to think of a plan. A solid one. There’s a way to get him back in one piece, at least physically. We just need to figure out what that is. Stop brooding and start thinking.” 

The last bit about “at least physically” stuck in Deran’s head. Pope was implying Adrian could come back alive, but mentally fucked. Which was especially likely if the preppers followed through with that rape threat. Deran was almost as worried about that possibility as he was them killing Adrian. Sure, they could get Adrian back alive, but if they tortured him like that? He might never recover. 

Deran’s temper boiled. If they touched Adrian? He’d kill them all, even if he died in the process. “You’re right. We can’t just go in like they want. What about our own lookout? They never said we ALL had to be there. Do they even know about J or Craig? We could have one of them scout the area for a good vantage point. Position them overlooking everything?”

Craig nodded. “We could do that, but what about a sniper? I’m not a bad shot, but not sure I could take them out from a distance. They’ve been survivalists for years though. Aren’t those types into militant shit? They’re probably all snipers. They could be hiding anywhere around that bunker and take us out before we even get close!” 

J piped up. “They probably know about all of us. It’s not like they saw you, me or Craig when we busted into their bunker in the first place. They’d only seen Smurf and Pope, and they didn’t show up to take us out when the whole thing with Smurf and all of us went down. They must have found us later.” 

He looked at Deran. “How else would they know about you and Adrian being a couple? They’ve most likely been watching us for a while. They knew about the ride, and intercepted it. Have you tried checking in with that friend of yours that was SUPPOSED to pick you guys up, Deran? I don’t give a shit about Angela, but Craig, you might want to find a place to put Renn and Nick until we finish this. They’ve probably been watching you, too.”

Craig stood up abruptly. “Shit! You’re right! I have to get them out of that house. I’ll be back in an hour.” He started to walk out of the bar, but J wasn’t done. “I don’t think we should separate.”, he said. “Can you call Renn and have her take Nick somewhere? We don’t know how many of them there are. They could be watching us right now, waiting to pick us off individually if we’re on our own. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but from what I’ve heard, preppers aren’t exactly the most mentally stable group of people.”

“Fuck!” Craig belted, sitting down to pull out his phone. He made a quick call to Renn. She was pissed and scared, but agreed to leave. He told her to call when she got someplace safe. Now HE had to resist throwing the phone.

“Since you seem to have all the answers, Gotti, how ‘bout you give us an idea of what we SHOULD do”, Pope deadpanned. 

J just looked at him. “I’m thinking. Give me a minute.” Pope rolled his eyes. “You’re thinking. Well, when a brilliant idea intersects with your brain, you be sure and tell us”. 

Deran gave his oldest brother a scowl. “Jesus, Pope. Give the kid a break. What he said made sense. If any of us can come up with something, I’m all ears. We need everybody we can think of helping us come up with a plan. What about the gold? How are we gonna get a hold of that? Do you just walk in a bank or something and exchange cash for gold? And how’s that gonna work? 2 million’s a lot of cash. Any legitimate place that has gold bars is gonna look at us suspiciously if we walk in with that kind of money.”

J spoke up again, kind of hesitantly. “I think I might have an idea for that. I can go to Gia. Smurf gave the ok for her to do business with me once she was gone. Of course, if we can figure out a decent plan, we may not even need the gold. Guess we’d better try and get it though, since we haven’t got one yet.” 

Deran nodded, and stood up to pull out his phone again. He needed to call Mark Liston. Mark was the guy he had arranged the ride with. He’d figured Mark wouldn’t ask too many questions about driving them to the airport, and since Deran had planned on having Mark drop them off in the domestic terminal, he wouldn’t have had much to tell the feds when they pressed him for information later. 

J got up and followed Deran to his office. Before Deran could make the call, J leaned in the door. “Deran, I know you probably don’t want to talk about this, but I have to ask. Was Adrian talking to the cops about us? On the way to the preppers place, Smurf told me he was. Why should we be trying to save him if he was a snitch?”

Deran hunched his shoulders, nodding and biting his lip. “He was talking to them, but not about us. Adrian got popped a few months ago trying to smuggle coke for Jack when he was competing. The surfboard Jack gave him was overloaded. Adrian told him it was too heavy, but by that point he couldn’t back out.” 

“They stopped him in customs. Offered him immunity if he helped take down Jack and his suppliers, which he did. Pierce found out about the arrest though. He took over Adrian’s case and ripped the immunity deal out from under him. Said he could get Adrian a lighter sentence if he gave them information about us. Adrian refused. Told Pierce to charge him. He was gonna do 15 years because he wouldn’t rat. Then Smurf’s cop contact found out Adrian was talking. About Jack, but the guy said it was about us. Smurf told me to “handle Adrian” or she’d sic Pope on him. I felt I had to get him out of the country. I was going to go with him, but then Craig wanted help with his kid and Pope just lost Baz. I didn’t think I could leave them. Now here we are.”

J nodded. “Ok”, was all he muttered as he started to leave. Deran stopped him with his next words. “J, you know he could have turned us in when we gave him that restroom beatdown. Both of us. He didn’t. He should have, but he didn’t. He’s loyal to our family, J. Smurf had wanted to get rid of Adrian since he was a kid. That cop contact of hers just gave her an excuse. She knew Adrian wouldn’t talk.”

J turned back around. He nodded. “Ok, forget I asked. I’m in. I need to take off for a bit. Got some stuff to take care of, but I’ll be back in a couple hours”. 

Deran scrunched up his nose. “I thought you said we shouldn’t separate”, he quipped. “Doesn’t that mean you, too?”. “I’ll be careful.”, J said. “This is something I have to do, and I can’t do it from here. If you don’t hear from me in a couple hours, guess I’m dead.”

With that, J walked out of the office and out of the bar.


	3. The Eyes Have It

Chapter 3

_____

Adrian

He had just gotten through his mini mental breakdown after the first prepper left, having been able to breathe for a minute. As he was trying to get his composure back, he heard the door open again.

A gruff voice came out of the darkness. “Brought you some food. Thought you might be hungry. ‘Puttin it in front of ya, and if ya kick me I’m going to beat the fuck out of you.”

Adrian realized by the voice that this man was a different one from the first guy. The one who had threatened him. He somehow felt a little safer with this one. Probably because the dude was being semi-nice. He realized he was most likely being naive and figured he’d probably regret it, but he spoke up. 

“I’m not going to kick you, but can I ask you a question?”, he said to Dude #2, honestly confused. He heard what sounded like a metal pan of some sort sliding to his feet. Dude #2 snorted. “What is it? And make it fast, I’m not supposed to be talkin to you at all“. 

Unable to stop himself, Adrian blurted “Ok, why do you care if I’m hungry? Aren’t you just going to kill me whether Deran and his brothers do what you want or not?”.

“Don’t know. Not my call. Doesn’t mean I can’t be a gentleman while you’re visiting”, the guy replied, chuckling. “How’d you get involved with my cousin and his conman brothers anyway? You don’t look like the type that’d be hanging around a group like that.”

“We grew up together”, Adrian replied, leaving it at that. He wasn’t going to give up information on the Cody’s that easily. No matter how much of “a gentleman” the guy was being. He wouldn’t give it to the cops, he sure the fuck wasn’t giving it to people that wanted his boyfriend dead. 

“You grew up together”, the guy repeated, snorting a half-laugh. “So, you into criminals? Like I said, you don’t seem the type.”

“Maybe I’m just into bad boys”, Adrian grumbled. The guy grabbed him by the jaw and forced him to look up, even though he couldn’t see him. He got in Adrian’s face. Adrian could tell because this guy had crappy breath too. “Don’t get smart with me, you little shit. We was just having a conversation, but if you’d rather not talk to me, maybe you’d prefer I send my brother back in. He kinda fancies you”, he said, pushing Adrian’s face away roughly. “Why’d they attack my family? They coulda just stole the gold. Why’d they have to kill my pops?”, the man almost cried out. 

Adrian could tell the guy was one step from losing his shit. He wasn’t any more trustworthy than the other guy. They were all unstable. He decided to be a little more forthright. “I honestly don’t know. Deran never mentioned any of you. I don’t think he knew about you or your family until Smurf brought them all here. If you’d known her, you’d know she probably didn’t even tell them what her plan was. She did things for her own benefit. Never her kids. They were just tools for her to use. Did Smurf and your dad get along?”

“Fuck no”, the guy blurted. “They were business partners, not friends. Pops was always pissed off and hard to deal with when she left. She always just showed up, all sassy and sarcastic. He shoulda just popped her when he had the chance”.

“Did she ever come with her boys, or was she always alone?”, Adrian asked, hoping the guy would decide the brothers didn’t have a part in hurting their dad. “Nah she didn’t. She was always alone. That don’t mean nothin though. Who cares if her boys knew who we was or not? They were still part of what went down. They gotta pay”, the man retorted. 

“Who killed him?”, Adrian asked. The man spat out “How the fuck would I know! It was one of em. Smurf or her kid. The oldest one. Pope’s his name I think”. 

“So you didn’t see it?”, Adrian attempted. “It was probably Smurf. If she and your dad hated each other, it sounds like something Smurf would plan as a way to take him out and get both herself and her boys killed in the process. Sort of a last hurrah. She’s dead you know? She was dying of cancer before she hit your family. I can totally see her trying to take herself and her boys out at the same time. She didn’t think they could live without her”, he finished.

“Well, it don’t matter. My brothers want them dead and so do I”, the man grumped angrily. “So I’m right then. You’re planning to kill all of us”, Adrian stated matter-of-factly. 

Just as the words were leaving his mouth, the door opened again, and someone else came in. “What the fuck are you doing in here?”, another voice said. “Thought you were just dropping the tray and leaving!” The new man sounded less than pleased. This was a different guy too, so Adrian realized there were at least three of them. 

“I was asking the kid questions about how he knew those bastards. Thought he might know something we could use”, Dude #2 replied. Adrian was thankful he hadn’t said much that could be used to help them. He’d been right about the guy digging for info on the Cody’s. 

“Find out anything useful?”, Dude #3 asked. “Not much. Kid thinks the old lady killed Pops, that’s about it”, Dude #2 replied. “Oh? And why’s that?”, Dude #3 demanded. “She was dying”, Adrian piped up. “Just sounds like something she would do”, he finished.

“Did I fuckin ask you?”, Dude #3 snapped. “Keep your damned mouth shut. I’m not naive like my little brother here. You’re just tryin to play us”. “And YOU, brother, need to come with me. Leave this kid alone and don’t talk to him anymore. He’s Odin’s to deal with”, he finished. 

They both soon left. Odin must have been the man that threatened him. Unless there were more than three. “No”, Adrian thought to himself. “The guy said I was Odin’s to deal with, so it must be that first guy”. Knowing the guy’s name didn’t make Adrian feel any better though. 

This group had obviously been watching the Cody’s if they knew Pope’s name. That, and the fact that they wouldn’t have known to grab Deran at the pier if they hadn’t been watching them. Adrian started to realize it was probably a good thing Deran had refused to come with him. He wouldn’t have wanted Deran to be the one in this situation, not to mention he himself would most likely already be dead if that’s how it’d gone down. These guys wouldn’t have needed him if they had Deran. 

But who was supposed to be in that car? It obviously wasn’t these assholes! Adrian hoped whomever it was was still alive. He kind of doubted they were, unless the kidnapper had just thrown the person out.

What a fucking mess they were all in!

_______

Deran

Deran watched J walk out. He shook his head as he picked his phone back up. “Kid’s an independent SOB, I’ll give him that”, he mumbled to himself, dialing Mark’s number. 

The call started ringing. It rang. And rang. When the call went to voicemail, Deran left a message, but his voice was shaking, and he wasn’t sure it was understandable. “Mark, this is Deran. Dude, you need to call me as soon as you get this message”. He hung up. If he WAS alive and had access to this phone, Mark would understand the seriousness in his voice. It would probably freak Mark out, and he’d want answers, but Deran would just have to deal with that. 

It didn’t matter. Deran somehow didn’t think it was likely Mark would ever get that message, which meant they had bigger problems. Did the kidnappers have Mark, too? That would add another variable to rescuing Adrian. Did they kill him outright? He would never forgive himself for getting Mark involved. It could also potentially come back on them, and affect, not just him, but his brothers. If the kidnappers had been watching them, as J had suggested, they could use it to frame them. Set up Mark’s killing in a way the cops would think he or one of his brothers did it. 

Deran was pretty sure J had been right about the preppers watching them, or at least him. They wouldn’t have known about the ride at the pier otherwise. But why would they just be watching HIM? They for sure had to have started with Pope, since he was with Smurf and they’d seen him. Made more sense that they were watching them all. “Wait”, he thought. “How would they have known who I called to arrange that ride? I called Mark from my cell in our bedroom”, he continued talking to himself. “FUCK!”, he yelled at himself, the truth of it dawning on him. “Those fuckers have us bugged!” 

He burst back into the bar. Craig and Pope jerked their heads toward him. “They’ve bugged us!”, he yelled. “And why do you think that?”, asked Pope. It was a reasonable question. 

“Because I made a phone call to arrange that ride with a friend. I was in our bedroom, and the shades were drawn. They wouldn’t have known who it was or what I was even calling about unless they had us bugged”, he explained. 

“Shit. That means we don’t know if they’ll know where Renn went”, Craig announced. “And now we need to sweep all our places for these things before we make any plans, and that’s gonna take a while.”

“Should sweep our cars, too. They could have GPS on us”, Pope stated. 

“Well, I’m not stayin here then”, Craig interjected. “We can’t do anything shut up in Deran’s bar. Fuck J anyway. He left. We can too”. 

“Wait!”, Deran stated sharply. “We should sweep our places together. It’ll be faster if we all do each place together, and we’re less likely to miss something. We can start at your place, Craig, since Renn’s involved.”

“I’d say we start where we are. Sweep the bar first. If they truly have us bugged, we need to get at least one place free of them so we can plan”. Pope said it like he wasn’t expecting to be argued with. 

Deran called Mark a few more times while they were sweeping the bar. Still nothing, but they had found five recording devices throughout the bar. They had checked their vehicles and phones as well. Each had a bug in it. Deran had been right. Hopefully, them finding these wouldn’t make the kidnappers twitchy. He didn’t want to give them another reason to hurt Adrian, but they couldn’t just leave them either. They had to assure they didn’t have ears if they were making a plan to rescue him. And maybe Mark. 

Dammit.


End file.
